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How to Scan for Nearby AirTags Using an Android Phone

• Data 03/06/2021
• Autor george zaharia
• -3
• 619

Here’s how this works: AirTags use Bluetooth so nearby devices on Apple’s Find My network can spot them. If you use a Bluetooth scanner app—the kind of app that shows nearby Bluetooth devices—you will see any nearby AirTags appear in the list of nearby Bluetooth devices.

It’s a little more complicated than it sounds. The Apple AirTag won’t show up as an “AirTag” in the list, but it will appear as an unnamed Bluetooth device—and it does say it’s an Apple device, so it might be easy to spot the AirTag if you don’t own any Apple-made Bluetooth gadgets.

How to Scan for AirTags on Android

To scan or nearby AirTags, you’ll need a Bluetooth scanner app. We used LightBlue, a free Bluetooth scanner app available on the Google Play Store. Install the app on your Android phone, launch it, and perform a scan. You’ll see all nearby Bluetooth devices here—everything from Bluetooth mice and keyboards to headphones to AirTags. If you live in an apartment building or you’re currently in a public location, bear in mind that you may see other people’s nearby devices in this list.

So, if you want an easier time spotting AirTags in the list, it might be helpful to get away from other people’s devices. You’ll have an easier time spotting an AirTag in your bag if you’re in the middle of an empty field than if you’re sitting in the middle of an airport.

The AirTag will appear as an “Unnamed” device. If you tap it, you’ll see that the “Manufacturer specific data” field says this particular entry is an Apple device, which is a hint that this particular device might be an AirTag. It could also be another piece of hardware made by Apple, of course.

Note: Note that the AirTag’s device ID—that’s the string of values that appears as “42:9A:35:A7:99:51” in the below screenshot—will automatically change to new random values over time. You can’t rely on the ID alone to spot an AirTag over time.

How to Find a Nearby AirTag

If you’re pretty sure there’s an AirTag near you, you can use the device’s signal strength displayed in the app to help find it. The closer your phone gets to the AirTag, the more the signal strength meter will fill up. By moving your phone around, you might be able to get a better idea of where the nearby AirTag is located.

Scan the AirTag with NFC

Once you find the AirTag, if it’s in Lost Mode and is tracking you, you can scan the white side of the AirTag with NFC to view contact information and a message the AirTag’s owner might have set. Just tap the back of your Android phone (or an iPhone) against the white side of the AirTag.

Obviously, This Isn’t Ideal

Clearly, this isn’t an ideal solution. With the launch of AirTags in early 2021, iPhone users will get a quick notification that an AirTag is following them—but Android users have to wait three days to hear a beep or scan for AirTags manually. That’s far from ideal.

What happens if Google releases a similar Bluetooth tracker in the future? Do Android users get a quick notification a Google Tag is following them, but iPhone users have to wait three days to hear a beep?

Clearly, more interoperability would be ideal—if Apple and Google created a cross-platform standard that would let Android quickly detect nearby AirTags in the same way, that’d be great. Unfortunately, we’re not holding our breaths for that kind of cooperation.

How to Test Whether Your VPN Is Working (and Spot VPN Leaks)

• Data 03/06/2021
• Autor george zaharia
• -3
• 580

If you signed up to a VPN and want to make sure it’s safe to use before browsing the web, then the best way to do so is to test it yourself. There are several free tools that allow you to test your connection’s security and determine whether or not your VPN is doing its job. You need no special knowledge to do so, so let’s get started.

What Are VPNs?

However, VPNs aren’t bulletproof: There are some problems that can pop up in even the best of VPNs that can potentially reveal your IP address to the sites or services that you visit, thus rendering your VPN useless. Thankfully, there are a number of free tools available on the web that can help you track down these issues and deal with them.

Types of VPN Leaks

When a VPN broadcasts your IP address instead of that of the VPN’s server, that’s called a leak. There are three types of leaks that you can easily detect with simple tools: IP leaks, WebRTC leaks, and DNS leaks. IP leaks come in two flavors: IPv4 and IPv6 leaks. (We have an article on the difference between IPv4 and IPv6). An IPv4 leak is when the VPN fails to protect your connection, pure and simple. You won’t see too many of these, if ever, as they only happen when a VPN fails.

According to Dimitar Dobrev, founder of VPNArea, IPv6 leaks happen if both you and the website you connect to support IPv6, but your VPN only supports IPv4. With the IPv6 connection effectively unprotected, the site can see your IP address. The only good way to prevent this is to upgrade to a VPN that uses IPv6 protection or has the option to shut it off. If your VPN has neither, then get another.

WebRTC leaks are a different issue: In the words of ExpressVPN Vice President Harold Li, Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) is a collection of standardized technologies that allows web browsers to communicate with each other directly without the need for an intermediate server. As this goes on, occasionally, a browser can accidentally reveal your IPv4 address and with it, your location. If this happens, you can disable WebRTC requests with a browser extension.

Last but not least are DNS leaks, which are quite common, and even high-end VPNs will occasionally suffer from them. They happen when your DNS requests are sent to your standard DNS servers directly without going through the VPN and using the VPN’s DNS servers. Changing servers should fix it, but if it happens regularly, you probably need to change VPNs.

VPN Testing Tools

Now that we know what we’re looking for, let’s take a look at how we can detect these three types of leaks. There are a number of tools to choose from: Our favorites are ipleak.net—owned by AirVPN—and ipleak.org, which is owned by VPNArea. Both do a fine job of showing you what you need to know, but since we like ipleak.net’s interface a little better, we’ll be using that one for the purposes of this article.

If you’re experienced in working with the backend of computers, our favorite VPN service, ExpressVPN, has put out its testing tools on GitHub. If you’re comfortable with more advanced tools like this, we recommend that you give them a whirl and get not just information on leaks, but also on a host of other data.

Testing Your Connection

To show you how the tests work, first, we’ll go to ipleak.net without enabling a VPN. There’s no introduction screen or anything. You’re immediately brought to your test results.

At the top is your IP address. Under that are the country and the city you’re in (Hello from sunny Cyprus.). However, sometimes, your city might show up differently: For instance, ipleak.net usually shows my city as Larnaca or Nicosia (both of which are about 50 miles away). This is due to my ISP connecting to a server elsewhere on the island.

The IPv6 test is just to the right of your IP address. It showing up as “not reachable” means that you passed, in this case, so we’re safe. Below that is WebRTC detection. If it’s empty, you’re also good. Last but not least is your DNS test, which shows a host of IP addresses, which can be from anywhere. These are the different servers that your signal has bounced between before hitting ipleak.net’s server. As it is now, it’s also fine.

Since running a test on an unprotected connection is kind of pointless, let’s connect to a server in the Netherlands. All you need to do in this case is connect, and then reload the ipleak.net page. The test will be run again automatically.

In this test, there are a few things to note: The results for the IPv6 and WebRTC tests are fine. To find out whether our VPN passed the DNS leak test, we need to look through the list of IP addresses and see whether or not our original IP is there: If it’s not, like now, we’re all good. This means that the connection is all good and that the VPN has passed.

However, there is one thing to note, and if you start running your tests yourself, you’ll come across this quite often: The location of the VPN’s IP address is different than what we selected. We chose a server in Amsterdam, but this IP places us in Overijssel, which is a province about 60 miles or 100km from Amsterdam.

According to Mr. Dobrev, this has to do with the way that IPs are registered. IP addresses can be moved around, but it often takes a while for the registrar to update this information. Also, to further complicate the issue, there’s more than one registrar. However, this is not a security issue. Usually, within a few days, the IP address will show up where it needs to be.

What Do Bad Results Look Like?

However, not all tests will look this rosy. Generally speaking, IPv4, IPv6, and WebRTC leaks will happen the least. Your author has tested a lot of VPNs and has only come across a few of these. However, DNS leaks are a lot more common, so always be sure to look carefully through the DNS servers to make sure that you don’t spy your own IP address among them.